Consider the following:
17.6 million adults–1 in every 12–suffer from alcohol abuse or dependence
8% of people aged 12 and older have used illegal drugs in the past 30 days
Every 40 seconds, someone in the world dies by suicide. Every 14 minutes in the US.
The US divorce rate is the highest of any nation in the world
1 in 10 US adults is depressed
There is so much pain in the world. Jesus came to bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, sight to the blind, freedom to the oppressed. He has born our griefs and carried our sorrows. We, the church, carry his message of salvation to the world.
Where is the church when the world needs her?
9 replies on “The world needs us”
In order to have a material impact we have to notice, we have to care, and we have to act. We can reduce that to two items because if we really cared we would act.
So is it that we don’t notice the pain and distress around us? Or do we notice but not care?
In practice I think there are many who do notice, and do care. But there are even greater numbers who are unaware and some who tell themselves it’s someone else’s responsibility.
In order to make a spiritual impact we need the same set of three activities (notice, care, act). Is this why so few of us make disciples?
Do you think there are also people who notice and who do care but who don’t know what to do or how to help. Like you say, they assume it needs a professional to help, not realizing that a listening ear is often more helpful.
Your notice, care, act, is really valuable!
Yes, I think you make a valuable point that I missed. So many people think an ‘expert’ is needed; people do not always feel empowered to act.
So we need to reassure and encourage. We can all provide a kind word or some practical help; we can all pray. We are empowered, not by accreditation from experts but from the Holy Spirit.
Experts are needed for advice and action in medical and legal matters or for extending a building. It would be foolish to act in ignorance! But that’s not what we are discussing.
Feeding a hungry person, talking with a lonely person, helping a friend when there’s too much for them to do, giving somebody a lift – none of these things needs an expert!
The world
needs us
Nov 04,
2013 11:54 am | Felicity Dale
Consider the
following:
17.6 million
adults–1 in every 12–suffer from alcohol abuse or dependence
8% of people aged
12 and older have used illegal drugs in the past 30 days
Every 40 seconds,
someone in the world dies by suicide. Every 14 minutes in the US.
The US divorce
rate is the highest of any nation in the world
1 in 10 US adults
is depressed
There is so much pain in the world. Jesus came to bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, sight to the blind, freedom to the oppressed. He has born our griefs and carried our sorrows. We, the church, carry his message of
salvation to the world.
Where is the church when the world needs her?
The Church, which is catholic, has become sectarian. It believes that only
Christians are “saved”, whatever that means! Saved from what, to what?
Latin/Western Christians no longer believe in the Cosmic Christ which was
implied in the Pauline letter of Colossians, but not really developed until
the Patristic Age.
“Bible-only” Christians have cut themselves off from a living Tradition, the process by which the Christian faith remains ever new to each succeeding generation.
Google “Cosmic Christ” and you will be amazed at how “small” the Jesus of history who is the Savior of the Church is compared to the Cosmic Christ who is the Savior of the world.
“Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the
living. Tradition lives in conversation with the past, while remembering
where we are and when we are and that it is we who have to decide.
Traditionalism supposes that nothing should ever be done for the first time, so all that is needed to solve any problem is to arrive at the supposedly unanimous
testimony of this homogenized tradition.” –Jaroslav Pelikan
“You cannot claim absolute finality for a dogma without claiming a
commensurate finality for the sphere of thought within which it arose. If the dogmas of the Christian Church from the second to the sixth century centuries express finally and sufficiently the truths concerning the topics about which they deal, then the Greek philosophy of that period had developed a system of ideas of equal finality. You cannot limit the inspiration to a narrow circle of creeds. A dogma – in the sense of a precise statement – can never be final; it can only be adequate in its adjustment of certain abstract concepts…. Progress in truth – truth of science
and truth of religion – is mainly a progress in the framing of concepts, in discarding
artificial abstractions or partial metaphors, and in evolving notions which strike more deeply into the root of reality.” –Alfred North Whitehead
“The sacred history of redemption is still going on. It is now the history of the Church that is the Body of Christ. The Spirit-Comforter is already abiding in the Church. No complete system of Christian faith is yet possible, for the Church is still on her pilgrimage. And the Bible is kept by the Church as a book of history to remind believers of the dynamic nature of the divine revelation, “at sundry times and in divers manners.” ~Georges V. Florovsky, Bible, Church, Tradition: An
Eastern Orthodox View
Hi Carol,
You’ve given us a lot of good quotes here, beginning with Felicity’s own words and ending with three extracts from other authors.
But there are only a few short paragraphs of your own, and these are all statements about your position.
Felicity asks, ‘Where is the church when the world needs her?’
Do you have some thoughts about that? What could we do that we are not doing? What does Jesus expect us to be doing?
[…] my last post I shared some statistics that demonstrate the pain that the world experiences. Not that Christians don’t experience pain, but we do have Someone who walks alongside us in […]
I think if we get into the business of making disciples motivated by our love for Jesus, we are then plunged into this problems.
The heart beat of Jesus within us, holds the addict in our arms, cares for the child without a mother, feeds the hungry, loves the un-lovable, throws the garment of praise around the shoulders of those depressed!
Those that sit at ease in the church, need to be reminded, that we have a responsibility to take the light, love and healing power of God into a dark world.
Marsha, this is beautiful! And so true
Ah Marsha, you have put it all into perspective. Amen!